


a million little battles

by wolfchester



Series: another universe [4]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: And softness, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, guys i love themmm, it gets angsty before it gets happy, multi-chapter fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-05-12 07:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19224556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: someone's gotta help harry get his life back on track, and so allie becomes his unlikely hero.





	1. how can i relate to somebody who doesn't speak?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song in the fic title: 'i am easy to find' by the national.
> 
> all the chapter titles are songs by the 1975 because i recently saw them in concert and it was so fckin good i've changed all the titles to lyrics from them hehe. this chapter is from 'antichrist'.
> 
> this ship has CAPTURED my heart ya'll. i love them so so sosooo much. i hope you enjoy this fic about what it might look like to have allie help harry with his addiction and to help each other get better. aw.
> 
> i have tried my hardest to merge this into the canon universe but honestly,,,,,,i know ya'll just wanna read that sweet sweet hallie content with all its banter and fights and conversations and angst and softness so i give this to u. so many other fic writers are doing an amazing job at merging au with canon in like a really realistic and in depth way so i think i'll leave that to others and work on living out my own fantasies of this beautiful enemies to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers ship that hallie has potential to be
> 
> there are two definite prequels to this coming up (as well as 'maybe leave something secret behind' which is the first work i posted in this series) and at least one sequel. excited to share these with u all!!
> 
> enjoy my friends.

* * *

 

_there's a million little battles that i'm never gonna win, anyway_

_i'm still waiting for you every night with ticker tape_

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Allie, Harry needs help. He won’t answer my texts. Maybe he’ll talk to you.”

Kelly washes her hands in the sink and dries them on a tea towel, face scrunched up in worry. The two girls are sat in the Pressman house’s kitchen, cleaning up after lunch. Will and the other boys had left earlier for their respective work shifts. Allie and Kelly’s don’t start until later this afternoon, with both of them being on dinner duty in the cafeteria. This small bit of free time gives them an opportunity to talk. And to make tea.

Allie lets out a whoosh of breath while she fills the kettle. “Why do you think he’ll talk to me? You’re his girlfriend.”

Kelly raises an eyebrow. “Definitely his ex. And you know why…” she trails off, sitting up at the kitchen island and giving her friend a pointed look. “Harry has...an attachment to you, I think. He respects you.”

“An attachment?” Allie chuckles. “That sounds fucking creepy.”

Kelly rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. He likes you. He’ll listen to you.” She rests her chin in one palm.

“I’ve already tried that. We talked. It’s been almost a month. He hasn’t made any serious changes.”

“I know. That was a good thing you did. But there’s something-- I’m worried--” she sighs, and it’s the sigh of someone who cares too much. “I think Campbell is supplying Harry with drugs.” She whispers the last sentence, like she’s scared someone will hear her. Even though there’s no one around.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Allie replies, startling herself with how callous the words sound coming out of her mouth.

“I’m serious, Allie,” Kelly warns. “Look, Harry has an issue with anxiety. He has for a long time. He was on medication for a while when he was younger. Then his dad died and all this shit happened, and I’m nervous that all his old problems have come back. He doesn’t look well. And I think Campbell may be taking advantage of that.”

The kettle hisses and Allie goes to turn it off. She pours two cups of tea--chamomile for her, rooibos for Kelly.

“Last year, when his dad was sick, he was put on meds again,” Kelly continues. “He had a few side effects and came off it after the prescription ran out. He shouldn’t have access to any kind of pills anymore, especially with the pharmacy being locked up. But I saw how he was at that movie night we had the other week, and it reminded me of what he was like a year ago.” She takes a sip from her mug and flinches at the heat.

Allie remembers that night. It was a few days before Harry disappeared into his bedroom. Elle set up a movie night in the church again. They all watched ‘The Incredibles’ and Gwen and Bean made huge batches of popcorn. Harry entered the room a half hour into the movie with Campbell at his side. She recalls him stumbling into the seat behind her, unable to keep quiet.

 _Can you stop talking?_ She had turned around and said to him. He’d looked at her with glazed-over eyes and a lopsided smile.

 _Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,_ he’d slurred, like his tongue was fat. Campbell had laughed at her. She had thought he was just drunk. But he didn’t smell like it.

Should she have seen the signs even then?

Allie repeats this out loud to Kelly. “No,” the other girl says. “It’s hard to tell, I know. And to be honest, I don’t even know for sure that he’s using again. It just--it makes sense, you know?”

“And Campbell’s--I mean, I know Campbell has dealt in the past. I know he uses sometimes.” Allie thinks back to that one Thanksgiving evening when she walked into the bathroom and saw her cousin snorting a line of white powder off the benchtop. He’d played it off, even cheekily offered some to her, but she had walked away and tried to forget that it’d happened.

“Right.”

 

Allie finishes her drink and sets the cup down. She leans over the counter to rest her elbows on the marble and looks at her friend--this brave, beautiful girl with whom she stumbled into a kind of awkward friendship--to ask, “So, what do we do now?”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, it’s Allie.”

“I know. I can see your name on the caller ID.”

“Smartass.”

“Whatever. What do you want?”

“You sound tired. Are you in bed?”

“No. Maybe.”

“Fucking--Harry, are you serious? It’s one in the afternoon.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I’ll get on a better sleeping schedule tomorrow.”

“Ugh, whatever. Meet me on the corner of Cook and Baker Street in five minutes.”

“Uh, why the fuck--”

“Just do it, Harry. Jesus. Don’t ask questions for once and do it.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’ll call the Guard on you? Shit, I don’t know, Harry. Just come. Please. I have lunch with me.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“Well, you can eat again.”

“Fine. Cook and Baker Street, you said?”

“Yeah. Outside the Starbucks.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

 

* * *

 

 

Harry shows up fifteen minutes late. Allie kind of wants to pull her hair out. She doesn’t make a scene, of course, because she’s bigger than that.

He saunters down the street towards her with a grin on his face and two cups of coffee in his hand. He doesn’t look too bad today. His hair looks clean and the grey sweater he wears is free of any stains - which doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a vast improvement on how he looked in his bedroom the month before.

He’s handsome. She’ll give him that.

“You want one?” Harry asks, holding out one of the cups. One eyelid squints against the midday sun.

“Really?” she questions. He nods. From her spot sitting on the front step of the Starbucks store, she reaches out to take the drink from him. “Okay. Thanks.” The paper cup is warm to the touch. She takes a sip. A perfect blend of bitter and sweet, just how she likes it. How did he know?

Harry takes a seat next to her on the concrete. The space is narrow. Their knees touch. Allie briefly thinks she should probably move away from him, stand up, something. Then Harry’s voice is interrupting her train of thought.

“Kinda weird to see a Starbucks, huh? It doesn’t really feel like it fits in here.”

Allie swivels around to stare up at the large green Starbucks logo on the window behind them. The door has been smashed through and hastily repaired, with a few shards of glass lying on the grass. Through the glare of the sun on the window panes she can see the store is empty. Months ago, when Cassandra had ordered the rationing of food and stocktaking of any and all perishable items, this coffee shop had been broken into and emptied of all it’s far-too-expensive coffee beans and tea bags. Allie thinks she can remember Shoe and Erika as the ones to handle the stocktake of the Starbucks. All the stuff found inside had been relocated to the cafeteria for consumption.

Now, the shop is just another in a long chain of stores along the main streets of New Ham that lie vacant. They created a ghost town. Tumbleweeds may as well be rolling down the streets.

“I guess so,” she finally replies. Remembering she has his lunch in her coat pocket, she reaches in and hands a sandwich over to him. “Eat this.”

“I told you I’d already eaten,” he says, but the words become irrelevant as soon as he begins to unwrap the foil covering the sandwich. He takes a bite and smiles through chunks of bread. It’s gross and weirdly adorable. “Cheese and ham. My favourite. How’d you know?”

“I didn’t,” Allie chuckles, surprising herself with the sound. It’s been a while since she’s laughed, and even longer with Harry. “Lucky chance that you like the most basic sandwich combination ever.” He hums his disapproval at her quasi-insult while she downs the rest of her coffee.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a short while as Harry finishes his lunch. He eats it quick--so much for not being hungry. Allie watches a breeze rustle through the trees in the park on the other side of the road. She thinks back to only a few months ago when her and her classmates boarded buses by that park, driving off into the sunset only to return to an abandoned home. _Although_ , she thinks, catching herself, _I suppose we never really returned at all_. If this really is an alternate universe, like Gordie and Bean have theorised, maybe there’s still a West Ham where the park across from the Starbucks is the same park she learnt to ride her bike in. And if that’s true, maybe there’s a West Ham where Cassandra’s still alive.

(God, she misses her family.)

The memory of her sister brings a heaviness upon her chest. That concrete weight that seems to come and go as it pleases, appearing at the most inopportune times. She hears Harry scrunching up tinfoil and blinks twice, returning to reality.

“Alright. Let’s go,” she says after clearing her throat. Allie stands up from the step and turns around to face Harry, who hasn’t moved.

“What are we doing, boss?” he asks, shading his face from the sunlight with one hand.

She rolls her eyes at his ‘boss’ comment and crosses her arms over her chest. “A walk.”

The corner of his mouth flicks up just slightly. “Okay.” He gestures to the empty coffee cups and tinfoil scattered on the stoop next to him. “Were you going to take your trash with you or leave me to clean up?”

Begrudgingly, she reaches down to grab her cup and place it in a trash can near the store. “The rest is yours.”

“Fair enough,” he replies with a short laugh, his dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners.

Allie guesses this is what Kelly was talking about earlier: it’s so hard to figure out if someone is addicted, or depressed, or anxious, or struggling. Because Harry looks absolutely fine this afternoon. He’s like a new man compared to the one she lay in bed with the other week. He’s upbeat, banterous, clean-shaven and warm.

But she has to trust Kelly’s judgement. There has to be something going on behind that pretty face of his.

Bored with small talk, Allie begins to walk down the street, not waiting for Harry to follow. She hears him scuttling to gather the trash and catch up to her.

He falls in with her steps. Their shoes crunch dead leaves into the pavement. She notices, if not for the first time, that he’s taller than her.

Ahead of them stretches Cook Street, the main road in and out of town. If they were to walk all the way to the end, they’d find a bridge that led to nowhere and countless miles of dense forest. You used to be able to drive across the bridge and get onto the highway that would take you all the way to Hartford. But that was Before. This is After. And there’s no highway anymore.

Allie and Harry walk past shop after empty shop. The boutique women’s clothing store Cassandra worked at in eleventh grade. The cheese shop inside which, months ago, Allie spent a full day counting up hundreds of different smelly cheeses as part of the big stocktake. The small cafe where Will used to work after school most afternoons. Allie would visit that place a few times a week. She didn’t even like coffee--only Will.

“So, boss. Tell me. What did you drag me out of bed for? You got something to say to me?”

Harry’s teasing voice pulls her out of her reverie. “Oh, right. Yes. I wanna talk to you about some things that have been going on with you lately.”

For whatever reason, she’s nervous to talk to Harry about his health. It felt easier in his musty old bedroom, when he was at what seemed like his lowest point. Defenseless. It was easy then to grill him about his bad habits and to try and get him to talk about his potential depression. But now he’s here, looking fine, that usual charismatic cheekiness and unrelenting confidence throwing her off her game.

Although, she thinks, those dark circles under his eyes may still prove otherwise.

“And what’s been going on with me?” he says, pretending like he doesn’t know.

Allie sucks in a breath through her teeth. The air is getting colder this time of year, and it stings. “The other day, when I came to your house to check on you--”

Harry lifts his hands in a sign of surrender. “Oh, no. No, that was just--I was just having a bad day. That’s all,” he says, and it _almost_ sounds convincing.

“Look, Harry--”

“Why’re you here, anyway?” he interrupts. She’s surprised with how stern he sounds, having been joking around with her earlier. Maybe she’s finally hit a soft point. “I didn’t think you cared about me that much.”

“I care about all of you,” she says with a sigh.

“All of us?” Harry laughs. “You sound like a queen talking to her little peasants.” He bends his knee in a mock bow and waves his arm with a flourish. “I am loyal only to you, my liege,” he jokes.

Allie scowls, pushing his arm away from her and walking ahead. “Don’t be stupid.”

He jumps back up and jogs up to her. “Okay, okay, shit, I’m sorry. I’ll be serious.” They fall back in line, feet stepping on the pavement one-two one-two in unison. “So, who set you up to this?”

“Kelly,” she mumbles under her breath. Harry makes a show of not being able to hear her. “Kelly did,” she repeats louder, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “She’s worried about you. Why aren’t you answering her texts?”

This feels so high-school, asking a boy something ‘from a friend’. But it’s genuine. Harry’s still only showing up to half his work hours, and he hasn’t been seen around the town much at all. It’s not usual for him. Kelly has a right to be worried. Especially if the stuff with Campbell is true.

Harry looks strangely uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I think--with her and Will...maybe it’s complicated. I don’t know.”

At the mention of Kelly and Will, Allie is reminded of that moment outside the gas station, right after she’d found the two of them together in the grocery store. She had felt so hurt. She remembers Harry’s face when she told him about the two hanging out together. He hadn’t looked sad, per se. Maybe just disappointed. His lips had pursed into a thin line, into a shallow smile. _I don’t care,_ he’d said, _do you?_

Then she’s accosted with flashbacks and feelings from what happened after that. After fugitive that night. Both of them a little drunk. The silhouette of his body in the shadows of his bedroom. Harry’s hands on her skin, lips on her neck. Some fleeting moments of pleasure. He held her hand afterward.

She shakes her head, trying to physically rid herself of the memories. Those won’t do her any good.

“Well, if you won’t talk to her, talk to me,” Allie says. “I’m worried about you, too.” It’s weird to feel the words leave her throat and realise just how much she means it. She’s supposed to _hate_ Harry. Instead, she just feels sorry for him.

Harry scoffs. “Worried? Why? I’m fine.” Allie raises one dark eyebrow. “I swear, Allie. I am.” He sounds so sure of himself, but she notices the way he tenses his shoulders and shoves his hands in his pockets and thinks otherwise.

“Okay,” Allie says. _If that’s the way you want to play it, then, fine._ “But I want you to know--” she stops walking and turns to face him, arms crossed protectively across her chest. She subtly rolls back her shoulders, thinks _you’ve got to be straight-forward with him._ “If there’s anything--if anything does come up that you need help with, I’m here, alright?”

Harry looks like he’s about to say something dumb or tease her about being soft. His mouth opens and closes without words. He unconsciously nibbles at his lower lip and lifts a hand to brush some hair out of his eyes. Allie tries not to notice how handsome he is, looking down at her with the sunshine on his back.

He settles with a small smile and a hushed voice that says sincerely, “Thanks, Allie.”

She feels the mood becoming awkwardly sombre. Even though she invited him on this walk to have a serious chat, when it actually gets down to it, it’s incredibly scary being vulnerable with someone. Whether you’re the one asking how someone is doing, or you’re the one answering--both are nerve-wracking. Allie feels it, and Harry must, too.

“Right,” she smiles, and begins to move again. A change of topic feels desperately needed. “Do you have work today?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m meant to be helping Grizz at the garden in--” he raises his wrist to check his watch. A Rolex, no less. “Ten minutes, actually. I better get going.”

They’ve come to the intersection at Cook and Greenwich Street by now. Somewhere down the north end of Greenwich is the Pressman house. Somewhere down the south end of the road, stretching past the park and towards the high school, is the community garden.

“Well,” Allie says, clapping her hands together once to try and break the weird tension between them. Harry squints at her quizzically. “I’m going this way, so--”

“Oh, yeah,” he replies, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “Yeah, I better go, too.”

She takes a couple steps backward in the direction of her house. “Okay. I’ll see you later, then?”

Harry nods.

“And you’ll make sure you turn up to work on time?”

He tilts his head sideways a little and smiles. “Yes, ma’am. I promise.”

“Good.” She slides her hands in the back pockets of her pants and smiles, close-lipped, back at him. “And I’m serious about, you know, help. I’m--we’re--here. For you.” God, this is awkward.

“Good to know,” Harry replies. “I’ll see you when I see you, Pressman.”

And that’s it. She turns away and begins the walk home. It feels like Harry’s eyes are still on her, watching her back as she leaves.

Maybe this will be the last conversation she needs to have with him. Maybe he really _will_ sort himself out.

She is, perhaps, naive.


	2. what you sitting round here for, and why’re you sad?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from: 'intro/set3'
> 
> sorry that this has taken foreveeeeer to upload. life has been hectic and writing has taken a back seat. right back into now tho yay
> 
> enjoy harry being an idiot and allie being soft

Allie feels like half an idiot all the next week, because Harry seems absolutely fine. 

Grizz tells her that he’s on time to all his shifts working at the garden. He’s there for every meal at the cafeteria, smiling and laughing with his friends and strutting around with that perfectly mussed hair of his. It’s almost comical how he still makes an effort to look good, after all this time. His shirts are pressed, trouser pleats straight, shoes shined. 

Allie tries to look for signs that he might be high or drunk or something of the sort--glazed eyes, slow reaction speeds, bags under his eyelids--but doesn’t find anything. Frankly, she’s not entirely sure what she’s supposed to be looking for. 

Most lunch times, she’ll find Harry standing behind her in the queue for food. She doesn’t know if it’s on purpose or pure dumb luck, but he’s almost always there, joking about the state of the tomato soup or brushing his arm against hers as he reaches for the salad. She hates that she actually  _ likes  _ this version of Harry. It reminds her of the Harry who drove her around in his Maserati while they played Fugitive. The Harry who kissed her by the pool. The Harry who...well, you know.

The skinny, lonely, sick boy lying on a bed that hadn’t been made in weeks is such a far cry from the Harry that smiles at her from across the cafeteria that it feels like a joke. That the depressive episode he experienced was just that--an episode. Not something long-standing. Nothing to be worried about.

Exactly a week after Allie’s walk with Harry, Grizz gifts her some fresh vegetables from the garden.

Their first harvest! Grizz is so excited when he turns up at her house that Friday morning, his cheeks glowing soft pink.

“I’ve got broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes,” he says, tipping the contents of the bag he holds out onto her kitchen counter with a smile. The vegetables are smaller than she’s used to seeing them in supermarkets, but that’s not the point. They look delicious. “I know it’s not much, but it’s amazing to see how the garden is growing. And how everyone is pitching in so well to help me maintain it.” Grizz sits down at the counter and smiles a rare smile.

Allie feels pride swell within her chest, thickening her throat. “I’m really proud of you guys. These look amazing.” She holds a potato in her hand, brushes the dirt off of it, and marvels at the feeling of its cool, lumpy skin. They haven’t had fresh food in way too fucking long. People had been starting to get sick. She’s pretty sure that a junior girl who’s in the hospital right now actually has  _ scurvy _ . Like they’re pirates or some ridiculous shit. 

“Harry helped me a lot, actually,” Grizz says after a brief silence, answering a question she didn’t ask. 

“Why--”

“He told me about your chat,” he interrupts, tucking a lock of dark hair behind his ear and looking sheepish. 

Allie scrunches up her eyebrows and plays with the vegetable in her hand, rolling it from palm to palm in an effort to distract herself. “He’s...talking? To you?”

Grizz shrugs like it’s not a big deal. It is. “Yeah. I mean, we talked a little.” He squints up at her. “You’re a good leader, Allie. And a good friend.”

And isn’t Grizz the friend she always wanted? “Thanks,” she replies with a careful smile. The compliment will never feel fully deserved, but maybe it’s better that way.

He clears his throat. “I was, uh, actually on my way to his house to give him some extra vegetables, too, so I better--”

“Oh,” she interjects before her brain can process the action. “I can take them. I can take them over.” 

“To...Harry’s?”

She swallows thickly. “Yeah. I need to check up on him anyway so this is a good excuse.” It actually feels like an extremely lame one, but she hopes Grizz doesn’t pull her up on it. 

Thankfully, he does not. Just twists his mouth into a little grimace like he’s trying to figure her out. “Okay,” he says with a sigh. He hands her another bag filled with cabbage. 

A laugh almost escapes her lips--typical Grizz, being the nice guy and handing out fresh vegetables, but giving the good ones to Allie and the ones no one really wants to Harry. She knows where his loyalties lie for sure. It’s comforting and funny and makes her feel less insane.

Because offering to “drop off” a friendly bag of cabbage to Harry’s house is  _ definitely  _ insane. They may have been gracious to one another in recent weeks, and maybe there’s a glimmering of potential one-day-sometime friendship between them, but they’re not all the way there yet. Not by a long shot.

 

* * *

 

She knocks five times on his door. No one answers. _He’s at work,_ she thinks, which is obviously a good thing. Allie briefly considers dumping the cabbage on the welcome mat and running, but who knows when the next flatmate (a loose term, of course--she’s not oblivious to the fact that _she’s_ the one who basically forced all these teenagers to live together) will be home? 

She tests the doorknob. It opens easily. A flicker of nervousness rises through her chest as she calls a greeting out into the apparently empty hallways of the giant Bingham house. Again, nobody answers, just her own echo bouncing off the walls back to her.

Allie steps inside, closing the door softly behind her. The house, like it was when she last visited, is lived-in but clean, losing some of its glamour and swapping the shine for cosiness. She bets,  _ knows _ , Harry hates it, and this thought gives her a small sense of satisfaction.

She dumps the bag of cabbage on the kitchen counter and rests her elbow against the granite. Midday sunlight streams through the windows above the sink. She runs her fingertips along the edge of the countertop and imagines what it might be like to live here. What it must have been like for Harry to have twenty teenagers move into his family’s home with no notice, right after their world had turned inside out. She didn’t feel sorry for him then, but she feels for him now. 

All at once, the conversation she had with Kelly is brought to the forefront of her mind. It feels like a lightbulb-above-the-head moment. 

Harry. The drugs. She can’t figure out if he’s using just by looking at him, but if she can find some tangible evidence—that’s a different story. 

Before second-guessing herself, Allie leaves the kitchen and ventures upstairs to Harry’s bedroom. It’s almost as messy as the last time she was here, bar the empty potato chip packets and bottles of beer. His rations must have been cut after all. Usually, Allie would be the one to organise rations, but she’s finally learning how to delegate, and that job has now gone to Kelly.

The mess of clothes on the floor makes her search for these elusive “drugs” (she doesn’t even know what the fuck they might look like) equal parts easier and harder. Easier, because it’s unlikely that Harry will notice someone’s been looking through his stuff if it’s all over the floor in the first place. Harder, because, well--she doesn’t know where to start.

She begins with each discarded pair of pants. Allie rifles through them all, pulling out the liners of pockets to see if there’s anything hidden, any little bags of white powder or small pills or whatever that looks remotely drug-like. The labels that read  _ Ralph Lauren  _ and  _ Emporio Armani _ do not go unnoticed. Allie scoffs at these, then feels weirdly nostalgic. The money that bought these outrageously expensive pants doesn’t matter anymore. Almost nothing from Before matters here.

No drugs are found in his pants, his shirt pockets, his jackets, even the soles of his shoes. His bedside drawers are devoid of anything of importance except a few condoms (and fuck it if she doesn’t vaguely remember him reaching in here to grab one when she was—), some men’s perfume (“cologne”, he’d haughtily call it), and a movie ticket stub from two years ago.

Relief washes over her when she sticks a hand into his sock drawer and her fingertips graze a tiny plastic package taped to the wooden bottom. This sense of relief is replaced with the knowledge that, in fact, she is a fucking dumbass.

She thought all the progress Harry had made—how happy he’d seemed and how productive he was being at the garden—was all to do with the talk she had with him. What is it about her and her  _ saviour complex _ ? It wasn’t her motivational speech at all. It was fucking drugs. Of course it was.

She is disappointed in herself for being so clueless, and at Harry for choosing to take drugs which are evidently becoming so damaging to his mental (and physical) health.

One surprising thing she also finds herself annoyed about is the extent to which she’s invested in this mission to help Harry. 

Or catch him out. Whichever.

Nice chats about forgiveness aside, Harry’s still not exactly her friend. It was no secret he hated her beloved sister and that she hated him back. No, they’re not friends.

Then why does she seem to care so fucking much?

_ Kelly _ , she thinks as she holds the baggie of pills in her hand,  _ I’m doing this for Kelly. _

Allie considers pocketing the pills and confronting him about it later. Maybe she’ll call him up again and ask to meet on another walk, then pull the evidence of his destructive habit out of her jacket like she’s an undercover cop or something. Maybe she’d yell at him a little about it, and get angry too, but they’d leave having solved all his problems.

Instead, it would probably go the way of Harry becoming furious at her for going through his things and shutting her, and everyone else, out of his life again. And that wouldn’t be constructive at all.

Stuck between two undesirable options, Allie reluctantly sticks the bag back to the bottom of the drawer and closes it gingerly, careful not to knock any of the trophies that adorn the top of the dresser. 

She catches her reflection in Harry’s bedroom mirror as she leaves. Her skin looks tight around her forehead, and her jaw seems stiff. She takes a moment to try and relax the muscles around her face, rolling her head along the back of her neck, pulling none-too-gently at the bags under her eyes. 

Since when did she look so old?

 

* * *

 

 

_ “Hi, this is Harry Bingham. I’m obviously not around to answer your call. Sorry! You can leave me a message after the beep.” _

_ “BEEP.” _

“Harry, it’s Allie. I haven’t seen you around much over the past couple days, so I’m just checking in to see how you’re doing. Call me back. Okay, uh, bye.”

_ “BEEP.” _

“Hi. Allie again. You didn’t show up to the town meeting this week for like the third time. What’s going on? Call me.”

_ “BEEP.” _

“Harry, c’mon. You’re either purposefully ignoring my messages or you genuinely don’t know how to work your phone, but I know you well enough to know you’re not a complete dumbass. I don’t know what’s up with you, but I’m worried. And, uh, Kelly won’t stop talking my ear off about you, so. Yeah. Please pick up.”

 

* * *

 

Harry hasn’t shown his face in public for days. Nobody’s really seen him apart from his housemates. Allie asked Mickey one lunch break if Harry was okay, and apparently he’s just been in his room again with the door shut, coming downstairs only for food and alcohol. 

Enough is enough.

Everything with Harry seems to be going around in circles, neverending. She’s got a town to run, goddamnit. She doesn’t have time to put up with Harry’s shit.

(Except she does. And she  _ will _ put up with it. Because something in her is drawn to him time and time again, and she can’t watch him be dragged under without a fight.)

For the first time, Harry actually answers the door when she knocks.

“What do you want?” he asks, hair messy and smelling of cigarette smoke. He’s handsome. Always handsome. And it pisses her off.

Allie’s upper lip curls. “Are you gonna let me in or just stand there?” 

He hesitates for a moment, and she can guess why. She peers behind him into the living room and notices a few bottles of beer and a smouldering ashtray littering the coffee table. 

With a sigh, Harry raises an eyebrow and waves her in. “Be my guest.”

She steps inside and wastes no time. “You stink. Have you been smoking?”

The heavy wood slams shut behind her with a bang. She feels, as she almost always does in the Bingham house, like an intruder. Out of place. Somewhere she does not belong. She swallows this lonely feeling, buried it deep down inside her stomach, and steels her jaw. She’s here for a purpose. Not to get all emotional.

He sits down on the sofa, spreading his legs in a display of confidence. “Maybe,” he replies, and there’s that usual snark to it. 

Allie doesn’t follow him to the couch. She gestures to the empty bottles on the table. “Are you drunk, too?”

“Maybe,” he smirks, crossing his arms.

She sighs. Heavy and tiresome. “God, Harry. It’s ten in the morning.”

“It’s just beer, Allie. Chill out,” he shrugs, and that only makes her angrier. 

She grits her teeth. “Is it?”

His silence and the way he can’t look her in the face is all the answer she needs. She’s always had this uncanny sense of being able to see right through him, and he knows it.

A strange, sudden anger fills her up, hot and aggressive. She feels a need to fight with him. To scream and yell. Why? Maybe she wants to see if he’s still capable of feeling emotion. He seems to be able to shut that off most days, pretend like he’s okay, lie to everyone. Keep a drug addiction a secret. Make promises he can’t keep. 

“Do you think I’m that stupid?”

Harry scrunches up his nose. In any other situation, it’d be cute. (She’s not going to even bother to get into why she thinks that.) Right now it just pisses her off. “What?”

“I said: do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m not smart enough to see what you’re doing?” Allie says, arms crossed and feet planted firmly on the floor.

He rubs his face, exasperated. “And what am I doing, exactly?”

“I’ve seen them. The pills. I know you’re using. What is it, huh? Xanax? Valium? Oxycontin?” 

Harry’s face turns to stone.  _ Ah. _

“Why the fuck are you going through my drawers?” He stands abruptly up from the couch, knocking over an empty beer bottle, swaying a bit on his feet. His voice is thunderous, but Allie isn’t scared. Not of him. She just sees the lost, depressed boy who didn’t leave his bed for days. And the boy who kissed her by the pool. “Have I lost my right to privacy too?”

“Your right to—? What? No! Harry, you’ve got a problem, evidently, and I want to help—“

“I don’t need your fucking help!” he yells. She’s hit a sore point. They both know it. Somehow, Allie doesn’t feel as satisfied as she thought she would. “I don’t! I’m fine! I’m good! I’m fucking fantastic!”

“Bullshit,” Allie says, lowering her voice. She won’t let this become a screaming match. She won’t let him win.

“No— _ you’re _ bullshit,” he retorts, like a kid arguing on the playground. The words don’t have much bite. All the air in his lungs whooshes out of him as he flops back down into the couch cushions, defeated. 

Allie finally takes a seat opposite him. “Harry,” she says, voice softer than before. “I don’t get you. It’s like you’re--I don’t know--bipolar or something. You act like my friend, then you disappear for days--even weeks--and when I see you again, you’re—you’re depressed, then angry, then happy, then mad. You talk to me, then you shut me out.” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, doing her best impression of a leader who knows it all. “What’s up with you?” 

They sit in tense silence for almost a full minute. Harry refuses to look her in the eyes, gaze focused on a painting on the wall. He taps his fingertips anxiously on the arm of the leather couch. The room smells of smoke and stale beer. 

“Look,” she says, breaking the quiet. “I know you used to take anxiety meds a little while ago. I can understand why you might need them again. But I want to make sure that you’re being careful. And that you’re not being--” she pauses, “exploited by anyone.”

And there’s the elephant in the room. The Campbell Problem.

Harry takes a moment to swallow the lump in his throat. When he speaks again, it’s with a dejected voice. “I am. I’m not. I promise.” She can tell when he’s lying. He blinks too fast, and his fingers twitch. 

Something in her heart breaks a little for him. What is going on in his mind that is torturing him so much? She told him she forgave him. He never struck her as a person who would get stuck in a rut like this. 

Allie is overwhelmed by an urge to reach out and hold his hand. She closes her fingers into fists instead, digging her fingernails into her palms. “I don’t know why you continue to pretend like you’re fine, when you’re not.”

“And I’m the only one?”

She ignores him and the stinging pain those words cause. “All I’m saying is...quit with the drugs, Harry. Ask for help. Don’t bury your head in the sand.” 

He looks at her square on, tilting his head a little and squinting his eyes. Like he’s trying to figure her out. He stays silent until Allie, realising that this conversation is going nowhere, sighs and stands up to leave. 

“Wait--” he says. She stops in the middle of the doorway. Cool air rushes in. She shivers. She’s not sure if it’s because of the cold or the way Harry’s looking at her with tear-bright eyes. “Why are you trying so hard to help me?” It’s not an accusation. It’s a genuine question.

She’s lost for words. What could she say? _ Because I need you. For whatever reason, I need you. _ No, no. Telling the truth is too hard. Too vulnerable. Best to settle for ambiguity and hope he can read between the lines.

“Because you’re my friend,” she says finally, softly. 

The tension in Harry’s jaw relaxes imperceptibly. “Allie--” he whispers, but she’s already out the door.


	3. broken heads and hospital beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw drug abuse and overdose
> 
> guys,, i can't pretend like this fic is in line with any kind of canon. i also can't pretend like these chapters are fitting together super well. all i know is that this is my fave chapter of any story i've written in sooo long. i hope you love, too. it's a really angsty, emosh doozy. listen to 'facedown' and 'antichrist' as you read -- it brings it to liiife
> 
> chapter title: 'facedown'

“Hey, Gordie?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, Allie. What about?”

“Harry.”

Gordie, sitting at the Pressman house’s kitchen table eating his breakfast, coughs on a piece of toast. “Uh, what? Harry?”

Allie sighs and sinks down into a dining chair. “I know, I know. I understand if you don’t want to help him--”

“Yeah, no shit, Allie,” Gordie bites. Meanness is not a good look on him. “We’re not exactly friends.”

“I get that. You know more than anyone, I get that. I just have a few questions.”

“About what, exactly?” 

She sighs again and rests her chin in her palm. “Look, I don’t want this spread around or anything, but I think Harry has a drug problem.” She leans back into the chair, exhaling deeply. “No, I  _ know _ he has a drug problem. I think he’s been abusing Oxycontin.”

Gordie raises one dark eyebrow. “Oxycontin? That’s pretty specific. How do you know?”

Allie purses her lips. “I found some white pills in his room, then I did some research and, well...he basically confessed to it the other day when I went over to see him.”

“How long do you think it’s been going on for?” Gordie frowns.

“A while. Five or six months, at least. Kelly says he used to take anxiety meds when he was younger. That may have something to do with it.”

“I mean, I guess he hasn’t been his usual asshole self recently. Come to think of it—I haven’t seen him around much at all…” Gordie crosses his arms. His toast is growing cold. “What do I have to do with this? I’m sorry he’s got some issues but I don’t see how that affects me. Or you, really.”

How does she explain this? It’s not like she’s in  _ love _ with him or anything. They’re friends. She cares about him. God knows how that started, looking at their history. There’s just something about Harry that, no matter how much he fucks up or screws her over, she can’t pull away from. Especially not now that she knows he’s in trouble. She can choose to help him. She can choose to let him walk his own path and deal with the consequences later on.

A year ago, before they arrived in this strange new town, she would have settled on the latter.  _ He’s made his bed _ , Allie’s mom used to say about situations like this,  _ let him lie in it _ . There was no love lost between them. Now, after everything that’s happened--

“Kelly asked me to keep an eye on him,” Allie says after a pause. It’s a half-truth, but not a lie. Kelly  _ did  _ ask her to investigate. It just so happens that Allie’s now somewhat personally invested in this, too. “I’m doing her a favour.”

Gordie looks at her for a long time, dark eyes searching her face. “Fine,” he says finally. “What do you need help with?”

Shadows grow long and grey on medical textbook pages as the sun--this odd, new sun in this odd, new universe--dips lower in the afternoon sky. The nurse’s office is silent but for the turning of thick plasticy pages and the tapping of a keyboard.

“What have you found so far?” Allie’s voice cuts through the quiet. 

Kelly clears her throat and gestures to the open book in front of her. “This one says that Oxycontin is meant to be taken orally in pill form for pain management but people--”  _ Harry _ \-- ”misuse it by crushing it up and snorting or injecting it. Apparently the high is better than heroin.”

“Fucking hell,” Allie breathes. “That’s--that’s like,  _ hard drugs _ .”

“Yeah, no shit,” Kelly replies, and not in a mean way, but in disbelief.

Allie scrolls through the document she’s been using to compile information about this drug and adds some more notes. She calls over her shoulder to Gordie, whose head is buried in another textbook. “What are the side effects? Like, how do we know he’s abusing it?”

“Apathy--”  _ check _ “--fatigue--”  _ check _ “--confusion, nausea, vomiting, apparently. Would you say that fits the bill?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen him throw up or anything recently--”

“I have,” Kelly interrupts with a sheepish look at the both of them that suggests they shouldn’t push for answers to questions like  _ when, what, where? _ Allie feels a pang of something unfamiliar in her chest. She knew Kelly had been worried about him--that’s the excuse she’d given Gordie, anyway--but Allie wasn’t aware that Harry was still meeting up with his ex-girlfriend. She briefly thinks about Will, and wonders for a moment if he knows about this. Just as soon as the thought appears, it’s gone, replaced again by this strange feeling of being left out. 

Against her better judgement, Allie asks, “When did you meet up with him?” It takes everything in her not to sound too curious. A slight raising of Gordie’s eyebrows proves she hasn’t been careful enough.

“I, uh, I’ve visited him a few times. Bringing him food and stuff.” Kelly clearly looks uncomfortable.

“Oh. I didn’t know you were still in contact.”

Kelly smiles thinly. “Yeah, I mean, we’re all kind of stuck here now, right? Gotta look out for each other.” 

“Right.” Allie swallows thickly and turns back to her computer. She reads through sentences she’s copied about opioid addiction but all the words blur frustratingly together.

Why would Kelly ask her to talk to Harry, to get invested in his fucking mess of a life, when she was already looking after him anyway? What was it Kelly’d said when they’d had tea that one time?  _ He won’t answer my texts. Maybe he’ll listen to you. _ And then:  _ he has a sort of attachment to you. _ It all feels like bullshit now. Harry and Kelly will always be connected by some kind of thread to one another. Allie reckons it’s the same with her and Will. Time surpasses most other things.

But it doesn’t make  _ sense _ . Why would Kelly bother to involve Allie?

_ Because she didn’t want to be the bad guy _ , a nasty voice whispers.  _ Because you’re already the villain. Because it was easier.  _

Then there’s another voice. Something softer. Quieter. So quiet that, if it wasn’t awkwardly silent in the office right that second, Allie wouldn’t have recognised it.

_ Because he likes you, and she knows it. _

Now  _ that  _ is some real bullshit.

“How much could someone take before they overdose?” Allie asks, breaking that terrible silence once again. 

There’s a long pause. Gordie sucks in a deep breath, then admits, “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

 

* * *

 

The ‘wait-and-see’ test proves, unfortunate to the nth degree, to work well.

It’s barely one week since Allie’s surprise visit to the Bingham household before her phone rings in the middle of the night. She rolls over and looks at the caller ID:  _ Harry B. _

Frowning, she answers the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, Allie,” Harry’s voice says, sounding scratchy and strained. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.” It’s funny because he almost sounds sincere.

But it’s two AM and Allie’s tired. “Well, yeah, you did.”

“Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry.” And this is so unlike the drunk and aggressive Harry she’d talked to at his house last week. More like the boy who spent a week in bed. A vulnerable Harry means, of course, that something’s gone wrong.

“What’s up?” she sighs, wiping the sleep out of her eyes and sitting up in bed.

“Uh--” he stutters, then coughs. It sounds like he’s having trouble breathing. His chest audibly wheezes as he sucks in some air. “I’m, uh--I need some help. I think.”

“Why don’t you call Kelly?” She doesn’t mean to sound bitter. She really doesn’t.

“Kelly doesn’t care about me,” he replies groggily. This implies that he thinks Allie  _ does _ care. She bites her lip as she realises, well, he wouldn’t be wrong. This thought makes her stomach twist a little.

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” And Allie understands what he means. It’s the same way she feels about Will. Someone you love doesn’t love you the same way, and even though you know deep down that they care, it’s hard to feel it. She feels that in the months since arriving here in New Ham she’s gotten over her disappointing crush on Will. (Maybe somehow helped by the brief dalliance with Harry.) Allie wonders if Harry’s gotten to that point yet with Kelly, or if he’s still hanging on.

“Okay, fine. So what if it’s true. Why are you calling me?” Thinking about Kelly’s (potential) manipulation of Allie into becoming Harry’s reluctant social welfare officer makes her feel a little pissed off. It doesn’t matter that it’s not really Harry’s fault.

“Because I don’t know what to do,” Harry says, ignoring her snark. She notices how short of breath he seems. “I can’t get myself to calm down.”

A warning light flicks on in Allie’s head. “Calm down?”

“Yeah,” he says, stuttering. “My anxiety. It’s--I can’t calm down.”

She remembers back to a week ago in the doctor’s office and the discussion about the drug Harry might be dependent on. “Are you sure it’s just your anxiety?” she asks, trying to sound as unassuming as possible, resenting her new role as his police officer, too. 

He pauses for a moment then responds with a shaky, “Yes.”

_ Well, that doesn’t sound convincing _ , she thinks, then repeats out loud. 

“Okay, fine. I took something,” Harry admits. His voice is softer and sadder than before, like he’s mildly disappointed in himself. It humanises him.

“How much of this something, Harry?”

“I don’t--I don’t know exactly. I can’t remember--” his breath hitches. “I just can’t breath properly, Al--”

“ _ Don’t call me that _ ,” she hisses. It’s two AM and she’s pissed off and he doesn’t get to call her by Cassandra’s nickname.

“What? Allie, I’m sorry, I know it’s late,” he says, reading her mind. “I just didn’t know who to talk to.” The words come out in a nervous rush. She feels bad.

“Okay, I’m sorry--” it’s an ironic novelty that those words have come out of her mouth, “--let’s calm down, alright? Listen to me. Focus on four things you can see, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, and one thing you can feel.” 

“What--what’s that for?” The shake in his voice is unmistakable.

“It’s something Cassandra taught me when I was younger. I used to have panic attacks pretty often.” For a moment, memories of Allie at twelve years old, sitting on her bedroom floor with her head between her knees, Cassandra holding her hand and guiding her through a grounding exercise, flash behind her eyes. Her throat tightens, thinking about that bad year of bullying in middle school. Thinking about Cassandra.

Harry’s voice snaps her out of her reverie. “Oh. I’m sorry,” he replies, and he’s been doing a lot of apologising tonight. His breathing is laboured, his voice beginning to slur dangerously.

“Yeah, yeah, anyway--” she rushes, “it doesn’t matter. Just listen to me. Let’s go. Four things you can see.”

“Fuck, um…” Harry sucks in a shallow breath. “Okay, I can see the bathroom mirror. I can see my face in it. I can see--uh--the window is open. There’s freckles on my nose.”

“Good, Harry. That’s good.” Allie keeps her voice soft and tone encouraging. “Okay, now three things you can touch.”

Sentences from those goddamn textbooks play in her mind:  _ people who abuse Oxycontin often experience anxiety and depression...may develop panic attacks...the main cause of death is slow, erratic, or non-existent breathing _ . Surely Harry isn’t dumb enough to take so much he’d overdose though, right?

“Uh, the bathroom countertop. My feet touching the floor. My hand holding the phone.” He’s going through the motions but he doesn’t sound any calmer.

“That’s good. Again. Two things you can smell."

Harry exhales hard and tries to suck in another breath. It sounds like he’s got something stuck in his throat. He seems on the verge of panicked tears. “I can’t really—I can’t really smell anything. My nose is—I don’t feel so good—“

Allie swallows hard. It’s not working.  _ Why isn’t it working? _ “Hey, Harry, come on, keep going--”

“I can’t--Allie, I can’t focus. I feel dizzy. I--Fuck!” There’s a loud crash, like he’s dropped his phone on the tile floor. Then the sound of violent vomiting.

“Harry?  _ Harry?” _ Allie yells into her phone, suddenly fully awake. No response. “Harry--if you can hear me--I’m coming over, okay? I’ll be there soon.” Her heart is pounding so fucking hard. Her tongue feels fat, and she can’t swallow. 

She curses to herself as she gets out of bed and shrugs on a jumper, then runs upstairs to bang on Gordie’s bedroom door. 

He opens it with mussed hair and eyes half open. “Wha--?”

“Call Kelly. Get to Harry’s house. I think he’s had an overdose. I’m leaving now--I’ll catch you there,” Allie says, words coming out in a blur. 

She doesn’t stay long enough for Gordie to respond. Instead, she’s flying out the door, pulling on her sneakers, and sprinting down the road to Harry’s house. 

The soles of her shoes go  _ thump thump thump _ as she runs, keeping time with her heart. It’s cold outside in the dark. There’s frost on the grass, and a freezing wind blows leaves off the trees. She’s only dressed in pyjama shorts and a sweater, but she’s not thinking of the goosebumps on her legs. Just Harry, unable to breath, probably lying on his bathroom floor in a pool of his own vomit. They never did find out how long it takes for someone to die from an overdose on pills.

_ How much time does he have? _

She rounds the corner onto Harry’s street. His house is in sight. A light is on in the bathroom on the top floor of the house. Just a little faster, a little further to run.

The front door is unlocked, thank God. Allie takes the stairs two at a time and bursts into Harry’s bedroom, hair wild, sweating, half-dressed. 

His en-suite bathroom door is closed. She tentatively turns the knob, bracing for what she will find.

_ “Fuck,” _ she breathes, which turns into, “Fuck!”

Harry, bleeding from his nose and from a cut on his forehead, is lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own vomit, head and one arm resting on the toilet seat. She scans the room for signs of—

Oh. A mess of white powder on the bathroom counter, spaces where uniform lines had been snorted or blown away on accident. A razor blade stained with flecks of white. A tiny bag with only one pill left inside. Drops of blood in the sink.

What has he done to himself?

“Harry!” Allie whisper-yells, moving over to crouch beside him and to place a hand on his bare shoulder. He’s only in his boxers. Normally, she would have felt embarrassed at seeing him half-naked (even though she’s seen it all before). But his skin is clammy and turning blue, and his body doesn’t look strong like it used to. And he’s bleeding. So much. “Harry, wake up!” She taps his cheeks with her palms, trying to inspire a reaction. Nothing. 

She presses two fingers to his neck. There’s still a pulse, albeit weak. He’s breathing, but barely.  _ Shit. _

_ Where are Kelly and Gordie?  _ Patting down her sweater pocket, she realises she never brought her phone. She doesn’t know what to do. 

_ I’ve just got to keep him breathing,  _ Allie thinks, cradling his face in her hands. Suddenly, she is struck by an overwhelming feeling of panic, and care for Harry, and worry about what might be happening to him. She coughs once and pretends like the water she’s wiping from her eyes was brought on by that, rather than by her own damn feelings. Which is stupid, because it’s not like Harry cares if she’s crying or not. He’s fucking  _ unconscious.  _

“C’mon, Gordie,” she mutters, brushing dark hair out of Harry’s eyes. She takes a scrap of toilet paper and attempts to wipe away some of the blood that’s still dripping from his nose. Some gets on her sweater, staining the end of her white sleeve red.

At that moment, just for a split second, Harry cracks open his eyes. And stares at her. And smiles, so small. Then falls back into unconsciousness. 

Before Allie can react, a voice startles her.

“Hey--oh, my God!” 

“Gordie! Kelly!” Allie whips around to find her two friends standing gobsmacked in the doorway. She wants to cry with relief. 

Before anyone can ask, Gordie is rushing forward with a strange shaped piece of plastic. “Keep his head steady,” he orders, and Allie obliges.

“What is it?” Kelly asks, voice trembling.

“Narcan. Nasal spray. It’s supposed to reverse the symptoms of an opioid overdose.”

Allie holds Harry’s head up, fingers digging into his sweaty scalp, as Gordie shoves the nasal spray up each of Harry’s nostrils. Harry doesn’t make a sound.

“Fuck,” Allie curses. “What do we do now?”

“Call 911,” Gordie says, forgetting everything. Forgetting that they’re completely alone in this crazy goddamn universe, that emergency services don’t exist, that Harry might die because of it. His face crashes, exposing for a moment all the sadness and loneliness and pain that comes with this new life they’re living. Then, he corrects himself. “I mean, the hospital. We take him to the hospital.” He’s already moving, reaching down to hoist Harry up from under his arms. But Gordie’s too small and Harry’s a dead weight. It’s not enough.

“Kelly, here. Come help,” Allie begs, taking one of Harry’s arms. Kelly moves forward and, with surprisingly steady hands, takes his legs. 

The three of them begin to maneuver Harry’s body out of the bathroom, trying not to bump his lolling head on the tiles or the wall. It’s difficult work, so when poor Mickey pops his head out of his bedroom to see what’s going on, Allie doesn’t waste a moment to call for his help.

“Hey, Mickey!” she hisses, not caring that Harry would hate people outside this small circle knowing about his addiction. “Help us!”

Stunned, Mickey does exactly as Allie says (she is the mayor, after all) and goes to take one of Harry’s legs to help move him down the stairs. Kelly swipes the keys to Harry’s Maserati off the coffee table as they stumble towards the garage. There’s no way they’d make it to the makeshift hospital by walking.

It’s a short, anxious journey. Kelly drives, having driven the car before and being probably the only person other than himself Harry would trust with it. Gordie sits in the passenger seat, craning his neck to check on Harry and Allie in the back every few seconds. Allie has Harry in the recovery position, his head on her knee, her fingers rifling through his tangled hair.

They tumble out of the car and carry Harry as fast as they all can manage into the doctor’s office. Only a week ago had the three of them sat there in the afternoon sun reading up about what to do in a potential overdose situation like the one they’re dealing with right now. Allie silently thanks whatever God exists in this alternate universe that they’ve now got that background knowledge, and helps Gordie drag Harry up onto a hospital bed while Kelly prepares the IV.

“He should be okay now,” Gordie says as Kelly gently inserts the long needle into Harry’s arm. “I think we got him with the Narcan in time. His breathing is steadying. He should just need a nice, long sleep and lots of fluids.”

Allie sighs heavily, letting out a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding. “Good.”

The boy on the hospital bed looks an absolute mess. Allie had mostly cleaned up the blood from his nose and head, but some dark crusty bits still remain. He looks so sick. And cold. Kelly finds a blanket to pull over his unusually frail-looking body. 

For the first time this evening, Allie notices Kelly’s hands shaking as she tries to clip on the heart rate monitor to Harry’s finger. Gordie sees this too, and kindly reaches across the bed to take the monitor from Kelly’s hands. She smiles gratefully at him.

“Thank you for coming, you guys,” Allie says. Her two friends look up at her and nod. 

“It’s fine,” Gordie replies.

“It’s really not--”

“It’s fine, Allie, really. I know Harry and I aren’t--whatever. But we have to look out for each other.” Gordie brushes his bangs away from his forehead and sighs. He looks exhausted. “I think he’s stable now. He’ll be fine tonight. Can we talk about what to do with him in the morning?”

“Yes, of course, Gordie. Of course. Go home and get some sleep.” Allie stands up to wrap her friend in a hug. “Thank you, again.”

With a tired grin and a friendly salute, Gordie disappears.

It’s just Kelly and Allie left, both standing guard over Harry’s bed. 

Kelly is the first to speak. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about keeping in contact with him.” 

Surprised, Allie raises her dark eyebrows. “Oh, no. It’s fine. You don’t have to apologise for that.”

“No, I do. I felt kinda awkward about it the other day. I should have told you.” She looks down at her feet and shrugs, tucking a lock of perfectly straight hair behind her ear. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m the good guy who swoops in when it’s easy and you’re the bad guy who picks up the pieces.”

Allie’s completely taken aback. How did her friend manage to sum up all her unbearable feelings in one sentence? “You sure you’re not psychic?” she jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

It works. “No,” Kelly laughs. “Just observant I guess.” The two of them focus their attention back to a sleeping Harry. Both girls soften just looking at him. “I do care about him. I think I’ll always care about him. There’s something about growing up with someone that--” Kelly trails haplessly off.

_ Time surpasses most other things. _ Allie gets it. She really does. “I know what you mean,” she replies. “I’m the same with Will.”

Kelly smiles. “Yes. Will.” The sound of his name coming out of her mouth in such a loving manner doesn’t bother Allie as much as she’d thought it would’ve. It’s actually nice to know that someone cares about Will in the same way as he cares about them. 

“So,” Allie sighs, crossing her arms. “Why did you ask me to check up on Harry, anyway?”

“I meant what I said,” Kelly says. “He respects you. He likes you, I think. I’m not sure in what way--” she sneaks a sideways glance at Allie, who feels weirdly embarrassed “--but he does. You’ve, I don’t know, captivated him somehow. It’s like he doesn’t know whether he loves you or hates you.”

All Allie can say to that is, “Huh.”

They’re silent for a while, just watching Harry’s chest move up and down. Up and down. Alive. Colour is coming back into his face with every breath. His eyes look like they’re moving below the thin skin of his eyelids. She wonders what he’s dreaming about.

“And how do you feel about him?” Kelly asks, right out of the blue.

The question catches Allie completely off guard. It takes her a while to answer. “I don’t know,” she says truthfully. “I feel this kind of responsibility or something for him. But it’s not just that. It’s--He’s--” she lifts her shoulders in a heavy shrug, unable to finish the sentence.

Kelly does it for her. “He’s Harry,” she grins. “I know.”

“Yeah. He’s Harry.” And maybe that’s all there is to it. He’s just  _ Harry _ . Charismatic, magnetic, introspective. Addicted, a liar, a broken heart. And a face that won’t let her forget that he’s handsome, too. 

Allie sucks in a deep breath and turns to face Kelly. “Kel, it’s late. You should go home. I’ll stay with him.”

Kelly doesn’t even bother to protest. They’re both so tired. But there’s something else, too. Something that goes without saying as a knowing glance passes between the two girls. This is a passing-the-baton moment. This is the time where Allie is stepping into the place in Harry’s life previously held by Kelly, and Kelly is moving into the space where Allie used to be in Will’s. For Allie and Harry, it’s not romantic. But it’s special. It’s important. Allie can sense already that the responsibility, as she put it, she feels for Harry is different than anything else. 

And she’s not even sure how it all happened.

Just that this moment is a significant one, and that this event is going to change the relationship between herself and Harry (and Gordie, and Kelly) forever.

Allie reaches out to squeeze Kelly’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

The older girl pulls her into a tight hug. Kelly smells of shampoo and sleep and hand sanitiser. “You’re a good friend,” she whispers. Allie melts.

They part ways and Allie watches as Kelly makes her way out of the hospital. The moment the door closes, she collapses down into a chair at the side of Harry’s bed. Her body suddenly feels very, very heavy. She feels the exhaustion--physical, mental and emotional--right down to her bones. 

Settling in for a long night, Allie finds a light switch and flicks it off, leaving only a single soft beam of light coming from the reception area of the room. She takes an extra blanket and tucks it over her shoulders, letting her limbs relax and her eyes close.

She’s halfway asleep when Harry’s voice wakes her.

“Allie?” he says, voice as rusty as anything. Her beats hard twice when she thinks  _ it’s dark--how does he know it’s me here? _

“I’m here,” she whispers, and reaches out in the dark to fold her fingers over his hand. His skin is warmer now.

“Where’s--?”

“They just went home.” God, why is this so sad? She wants to fucking cry. To break down in tears for one  _ goddamn _ second. Why won’t she let herself do that?

“Oh.” A long pause. Then: “I’m so sorry, Allie. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice catches. Although she can’t see his face, she’s pretty sure he’s crying. She is now, too. Softly, quietly, painfully.

“It’s okay.” It’s not. Nothing’s okay. It wasn’t okay when they all woke up on those buses in their town that wasn’t their town. It wasn’t okay when Dewey murdered Cassandra. It wasn’t okay when Allie killed Dewey. It wasn’t okay when she found out Harry was abusing pills. It’s not fucking okay that he’s lying here in a hospital bed, recovering of a near-fatal overdose. And it’s not okay that this whole situation makes Allie want to grab Harry’s hand and never let go.

“It’s not,” Harry replies, and what is it with people reading her mind? “It’s really not.”

“We can talk about it tomorrow, Harry,” she hums, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand and feeling strangely maternal. “Are you cold?”

“No. Are you comfortable?” Why the fuck would he care about her comfort when he’s in such a state? This whole night really  _ has  _ changed things. 

“No,” she replies, and breathes a laugh. “This chair is fucking awful.”

Harry giggles, too. Well--as best as he can. “Pull up a bed,” he suggests.

It’s not a bad idea. She stands up and turns on the light. Harry squints at the fierce whiteness and raises a hand to cover his eyes.

“Sorry!” she mutters, wheeling an extra bed over to Harry’s as fast as she can. She pulls herself up onto the bed (which admittedly isn’t that much more comfortable than the chair) and tugs the blanket up to her chin. Before she turns off the light again, she turns to look at Harry, and finds that he’s already staring at her.

There’s something curious and wondrous playing in his eyes. He’s just come so close to death, but he looks--he looks like Allie feels. Like tonight has awoken something in her that will never leave. He opens his mouth and looks like he’s about to say something stupid like  _ you are so pretty _ or  _ I think I need you more than I know _ . 

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Allie says for him. It feels an appropriate thing to say.

Harry closes his eyes and sighs. The lights turn off again. His hand reaches out in the darkness to touch hers, like he did that afternoon in his bedroom, weeks ago. She smiles, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are you crying ??? i'm crying guys

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @buckebarns to talk to me abt s2 theories and how good jose's instagram is


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